This past week, I had to return to National Jewish hospital to undergo SIBO (AKA gut bacteria overgrowth) testing, in hopes that it was what’s been giving me so much trouble for the better part of a decade.

On the way there, I fought traffic all the way down 6th avenue. It was fine for the first several miles, till I reached where the highways pretzel around each other and the buildings are tens of stories tall. People were everywhere, as usual, many of them frustrated by the bumper-to-bumper traffic. But, I didn’t get worked up over it. I was far more worried about the SIBO test than anything else. 

However, as I approached Galapago street where a huge Catholic church stood, I was suddenly confronted with a sight I haven’t seen in almost ten years. Middle and high school students from Girls Athletic School Denver were running their morning jog; a morning jog I did every school day with decent weather for two-and-a-half-years. 

I’m not sure what to call the emotions I felt as I drove by that endless herd of students jogging and walking on the cracked sidewalk between 6th avenue and the church before rounding the block. It wasn’t really nostalgia. I just couldn’t believe I went to school in the heart of Denver, and did that exact same jog nearly every day without a problem, especially considering how much I’ve always hated being in the city. 

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of 6th avenue on Fox street, there were two police SUVs with their lights on causing traffic to slow down significantly. As I passed by them, I saw that the cops were standing over someone who was clearly on drugs (most likely Ketamine), having the time of their life rolling around in the lawn of some other school. Evidently, the druggie didn’t pose a threat to anyone (and none of the students jogging seemed to even notice the whole ordeal). But still, witnessing that whole series of events unlocked a shitload of nearly-forgotten memories from the two-and-a-half years I spent at GALS. 

Once at National Jewish, instead of spending the next three hours playing World of Warcraft while doing my SIBO tests, I laid back on the hospital bed, began to listen to music, and just let the memories flow through my mind. 

For the record, none of my memories from that time were particularly bad or uncomfortable. Out of all the schools I attended throughout K-12, GALS was the best one by far.

However, I’ve grown and changed a lot since GALS. Perhaps, I was allowed to grow more sensitive to the noises and goings-on of Denver since leaving it for the western suburbs of Littleton. Which is why, in the dimly lit hospital room, while listening to country western artists such as Daron Little and Dave Stamey, I just couldn’t quite compute that I’d attended school twelve or thirteen blocks from the Denver Capitol for 7th-9th grades. When looking at me, people assume I grew up deep in the backwoods. But, that's far from true (even though, at times, I wish it was). 

Regardless, I looked back at those years at GALS somewhat fondly, while still glad that they were over. 

Back when I was attending GALS, the school had just moved into a new building (a rundown former elementary school). The new building wasn’t big enough to accommodate all of the classes GALS offered, so we often walked to other places nearby for those classes.

For our art classes, we’d walk to the Center for Visual Arts, and take tours of other art galleries and street art in the Santa Fe Art district. When the gym was undergoing renovations, we’d walk to the Boys and Girls Club to play indoor games on snowy/icy days. On nicer days, when GALS' field was being razed to build GALS a new gym (and many more classrooms), we’d walk to West High School’s football field. And every morning that was warm enough, we’d jog around the block, and/or around Sunken Gardens park. I even remember walking to the South Platte River to collect samples of creek water to look at through a microscope for 7th grade science. 

Of course, while doing these daily off-campus activities (if you can call GALS’ little building a campus), I was exposed to all sorts of unique people, places, and experiences that can only happen in the inner city.